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WHERE WE STOOD 



AND 



WHERE WE STAND. 



BY THE AUTHOR OF 

"THE UNION AS IT WAS AND THE CONSTITUTION AS IT IS." 



WHERE WE STOOD AND WHERE WE STAND. 



Four thousand years ago, u Ishinaelites caine from 
Gilead with their camels, bearing spicery, balm and 
myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt;" and doubt- 
less to carry back the productions of Egypt. God has 
diversified the earth with different climates, each yield- 
ing peculiar fruits, whose interchange, as in the above 
example, renders man every where useful to all his 
fellows, and encourages mutual dependence. Every 
climate occasions, also, institutions and habits congenial 
to its inhabitants, but uncongenial usually to men of 
other climes, whereby, probably, God designed to pro- 
mote harmony among the inhabitants of each locality, 
and to prevent conflicts between different localities. 
A union under one government of great climatic 
diversities is, therefore, a device of man, not of God. 
History is but a record of wars to forcibly consolidate 
under one government climatic diversities, or to forci- 
bly separate climatic diversities from such consolida- 
tions ; and the eventual disruption of all great empires 
so constituted, attests that climatic diversities must 
ever ultimately become disunited. 

But what God has thus separated for man's good, 
our American Confederacy joined together by the 
Constitution of 1787, whereby the North and the 
South were united under one government — a now 
marriage, not of "January and May," but of January 



and August. The new union was peculiar by its vol- 
untary formation : thirteen different families consenting 
to live in one house, and for the singular purpose of 
"insuring domestic tranquillity,' 7 despite the proverb 
that no two families can live together peacefully. But 
each of our thirteen families was to mind only its own 
affairs, and especially not to intermeddle with the 
domestic arrangements of any other family. What 
more could be needed in " Hail Columbia happy land," 
by "a band of brothers joined, who peace and safety 
hoped to find." Had some prophet whispered what 
would occur in these latter days, every member of the 
Convention would have answered, "Is thy servant a 
dog that he should do this great thing ?" Have we 
not proclaimed, "that to secure life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness governments are instituted, deriv- 
ing their just power from the consent of the gov- 
erned ; and that when any form of government becomes 
destructive of these ends, it is the people's right to 
alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, 
founding it on such principles, and organizing its 
powers in such form as shall seem most likely to effect 
their safety and happiness?" — and the prophet of evil 
would have been hissed as a lying spirit. 

Nothing could be better than the objects of the new 
Confederacy, and nothing could be wiser than the 
Constitution by which the objects were to be attained ; 
but was human nature good enough for the proposed 
government, and wise enough for its requirements? 
Nobody asked the question, and had it been asked, an 
affirmative would have been indignantly responded : 
all men hating injustice when no selfish motive thereto 
is present ; yet, alas ! no saint can foresee the sinner he 



may become under the promptings of self-interest, as 
no man can foresee what a coward he may become 
when he is brought to face danger. Of another diffi- 
culty the Convention seem to have been unaware : 
they labored to limit the new government's authority, 
supposing its limitations could be accomplished by apt 
phrases, but forgetting that language is interpreted by 
the readers thereof, who are as changeful as time and 
as different as individuals. "Whoso sheddeth man's 
blood, by man shall his blood be shed," was deemed 
an explicit and divine sanction for capital punishment 
no longer than man favored the punishment. Indeed, 
the numerous Christian sects who derive their conflict- 
ing creeds from the same oracles, demonstrate thereby 
the impracticability of limiting by words the meaning 
of words ; hence, before John Adams, the second Presi- 
dent of the Confederacy, was well seated in his office, 
politicians had subsided into the two opposite parties 
that, under various names, have continually agitated 
the country ; one construing the Constitution so as to 
subordinate all climatic diversities to the control of a 
Congressional majority, and the other party seeking to 
preserve each State's peculiarities from Congressional 
power. The struggle for supremacy of these two 
parties, constitutes nearly all our civil history — the 
struggle being perpetuated, and also demoralized, by 
its constituting a game of chance to win political 
power and pecuniary rewards ; and in which game all 
citizens participate — the lowest as " egg men," who on 
election days swarm our polls to sell their votes to the 
best bidder, and the highest as leaders, who sell them- 
selves, becoming anti-masons, anti-renters, an£i-slavery, 
anti-catholics, anti-foreigners — "everything by turns, 



and nothing long. 1 ' For as a stage manager brings for- 
ward the most attractive novelties, our politicians sup- 
port the opinions that will catch the most voters, 
irrespective of right or wrong, truth or falsity, con- 
sistency or inconsistency. 

When our Union was formed, the numerical strength 
of its two climatic sections was pretty evenly divided, 
but the North gradually waxed stronger than the 
South, so that the contest would soon have been 
decided adversely to the South, had the South not 
been aided by Northern allies, who advocated the 
Southern construction of the Constitution; though 
recent events disclose that these Northern allies 
regarded only the power and patronage they acquired 
by aiding the South, and "point aV argent, point de 
Suisse." The climatic peculiarities of the South 
included chiefly domestic slavery, as essential to the 
culture of cotton, rice, sugar, and tobacco ; but being 
thus an agricultural people, the South desired the 
smallest practicable tariff on foreign importations. In 
1836, when Congress distributed ratably to all the 
States some thirty millions of dollars that were surplus 
in the Federal treasury, the South opposed the distri- 
bution as creating a new motive for high import 
duties. From like motives, they opposed Congres- 
sional expenditures for roads and harbors, desiring, in 
the words of a Southern President, (Gen. Jackson,) to 
make the general government a machine of the sim- 
plest kind, and leaving local improvements to the 
States respectively. John Quincy Adams, who was at 
the time a Congressional Representative, ridiculed this 
restriction of the government; and when previously 
he was President, he advocated the Northern views of 



the Union, saying, "that while foreign nations, less 
blessed than ourselves with freedom, which is power, 
are advancing with gigantic strides in the career of 
public improvements, were we to slumber in ignorance 
or fold our arms, proclaiming to the world that we are 
palsied by the will of our constituents, (the Constitu- 
tion,) would it not be to cast away the bounties of 
Providence, and doom ourselves to perpetual inferior- 
ity ?" But the time had not arrived for a revolution 
of our government from its original limited authority, 
and Mr. Adams, for his heresies therein, was displaced 
at the next Presidential election. 

Thus, with varying alternations, waged the conflict 
of constitutional limitation for more than half a cen- 
tury, when the admission of California into the Union 
as a free State, enabled a controlling New York Sena- 
tor to declare in his place that " the battle had been 
fought and won," California giving to the North a 
majority in the Senate, as it already had in the House 
of Representatives. Nor was the term "battle fought 
and won," a mere figure of speech ; though few knew 
so well as the eminent Senator all the consequences of 
which it was to be the forerunner, and for the con- 
summation of which he had labored so unremittingly, 
believing, as we may charitably suppose, that he could 
rule the storm as adroitly as he had raised the whirl- 
wind. From his eloquence, and from clerical and lay 
partisan assistance, the Federal government, as origin- 
ally limited, and to which limitation the South persist- 
ently clung, had become hateful to the North. It 
required them to deliver back to bondage fugitive 
slaves, and this, though admittedly constitutional, was 
stigmatized as a " covenant with death and an agree- 



ment with hell." In short, the North was tired of the 
Confederacy, and desired a national government as 
ardently as the Jews wanted a king. They desired an 
unlimited government, like that of other people, and 
that the States should thereto be as subordinate in 
all things as counties are to a State; and these tenets, 
which the South abhorred as heresies, the North 
insisted were only a return of the government to the 
intention of its founders ; and both parties appealed 
with confidence and equal honesty to the Constitution. 
Such being the temper and theory of the North, 
nothing remained to effectuate its advocated revolu- 
tion but the election of a Northern President by 
Northern votes alone, and in disregard of the South ; 
and President Lincoln was so elected on the 4th of 
March, 1861. 

The revolution thus accomplished was exempt from 
physical violence, and hence the revolutionary charac- 
ter of the election was not obvious ; but no revolution 
could be more complete in its avowed ultimate conse- 
quences. The South still retained, with the aid of 
Northern allies, a nominal majority in Congress for the 
proximate session, and with which aid aggressions 
against Southern peculiarities might have been mea- 
surably restrained ; but the South knew these securi- 
ties to be unreliable while all governmental patronage 
was against them, and they despaired of any future 
improvement. No alternative, therefore, seemed prac- 
ticable to' the South, but to submit all its climatic 
peculiarities to the control of Congress, or to secede 
from the Union. The latter alternative eleven States 
adopted, recalled their Senators and Representatives 



9 

from Congress, and organized a Confederacy by them- 
selves. 

Had the South been permitted to depart as was 
recommended by a military chieftain, "wayward sisters 
depart in peace," both sections would have become 
prosperous, contented and happy nations; each foster- 
ing its own climatic peculiarities, and not clogged, as 
heretofore, by adverse interests. Each section was, 
also, large enough for any increase of population that 
time could supply ; and with such increase, intersec- 
tions^ commerce would have augmentedly benefited 
both sections, as Great Britain realized after the Ameri- 
can colonies became independent of her. But the 
North, enriched by Southern intercourse, could ill 
brook to lose, even by its own intolerance, the goose 
that laid the golden eggs. Indeed, that the loss should 
result from such a cause inveterated the pending evil, 
no reproach being so poignant as self-accusation ; and 
as blessings brighten as they take their flight, the 
North exaggerated its personal loss, by claiming that 
secession involved "the nation's life, liberties, consti- 
tution, and government; 1 ' though truly it involved 
nothing but a diminished territory. England's wisest 
living writer, commenting on like exaggerations in 
the French revolution, says: "When thou findest a lie 
that is oppressing thee, extinguish it. Lies exist only 
to be extinguished ; they wait and cry earnestly to be 
extinguished." But our lie could not be extinguished 
without extinguishing with it all virtuous apology for 
war against the South. The North accordingly resolved 
that the wayward sisters, who claimed only to be left 
alone, must "to save the nation's life, liberties, consti- 



10 

tution, and government," be retained at any cost of 
principles, blood, and treasure. 

Thus commenced a second revolution of our gov- 
ernment. The first revolution gave every Congres- 
sional majority unlimited powers, and the second con- 
verted our voluntary Union into an involuntary one ; 
the two families that consented to live in one house, 
"to insure domestic trauquillity," are to be forcibly 
retained therein, though it insure domestic war. The 
South, with its eight or nine millions black and white 
people, had often threatened secession ; but the North, 
with its twenty-three millions of free inhabitants, with 
its established government, boundless wealth, credit, 
naval and military resources, regarded the threat of 
the South as the bark of a small dog too impotent to 
bite. Even in 1861, a New York Senator laughed in 
his place when a Georgian Senator talked of secession, 
and a listening gallery echoed the laugh. That the 
South would be massacred by its slaves, if Northern 
assistance were not guaranteed by the Constitution, 
was a Northern belief; and hence that the South could 
not be kicked out of the Union, was a tenet acted on 
as well as believed. No wonder, therefore, after the 
actual secession of several States, our government 
pursued its accustomed routine, like the old world of 
Noah, "marrying and giving in marriage," till the 
flood overwhelmed Sumpter, when it collected 75,000 
three months volunteers, which we all thought exces- 
sive; and which rushed to the fray as boys to a squirrel 
hunt, and expecting no smaller sport and not much 
greater danger. 

Nor was the South aware of the task secession 
created. They saw in the Federal Constitution no 



11 

authority to coerce sovereign States, and vainly relied 
that no extra constitutional power would be exercised 
by a government that claimed to abide by the Consti- 
tution. They looked, also, like the fabled hare with 
many friends, to England and France, and especially 
to Northern Democrats, who had long inspirited the 
South to assert State rights against Northern encroach- 
ments; and who, as late as February, 1861, at a State 
Convention held at Albany, had wept in contemplation 
of threatened coercion of the South, and had uttered with 
applause, that the first blood to be shed in such a con- 
test should flow at the North. Nothing, therefore, 
more surprised the South, after secession prevented 
alliance with them from yielding its accustomed 
advantages, to see Northern Democrats abandon the 
South, as a harlot abandons a bankrupt lover, and ply 
their vocation where thrift would better follow fawn- 
ing, becoming generals of invading Northern armies 
and military governors of invaded Southern States ; 
and, renegade-like, becoming the fiercest among the 
fierce, and the bloodiest among the bloody. Others of 
them, less inclined " to villainous saltpetre," sought 
political power by advocating a vigorous prosecution 
of the war; but, with the usual inconsistency of a false 
position, rejoicing at Northern defeats, and denouncing 
all measures promotive of success. " The Union as it 
was, (a Union of only good-will, as they insist,) they 
would restore by force ; and " the Constitution as it 
is," (a Constitution which they declare is subverted,) 
they would preserve by aiding the subverters. Zeal- 
ous, also, against infringements of personal rights at 
the North, they seem unaware that the coercions they 
sanction against the South, are equally authoritative 



12 

against the liberties of the North. But they complain 
to only deaf ears; our people understanding better 
than formerly the tricks of the "outs" to become 
"ins," and valuing less than heretofore the privilege of 
deciding which of two sets of unknown candidates 
shall enjoy the spoils of office. 

We commenced our civil war with the question : 
Have we a government? and this question at least has 
been decided by the war, though people may differ as 
to whether the positive government is better than the 
doubtful one. For himself, the writer prefers King 
Stork to King Log. Our public affairs are now regu- 
lated by eminent functionaries, while under our former 
system affairs were regulated by majorities, who are 
the young, the ignorant, and the prejudiced, and, 
therefore, unfit to rule. If the pudding is to be tested 
by the eating, the proverb decides in favor of our new 
system, for while shorn of a third of our population, 
the power we evince appals all Europe, and no people 
are more surprised thereat than ourselves ; but with- 
out our knowing that its origin is the change of our 
government from a hesitating power to one that 
devises prompt means to suit any desired end, regard- 
less of what the means may be. And all effected by 
a new reading of the Constitution, so as to favor 
extension of powers instead of limitation. The war 
power alone is found to contain exhaustless resources 
for any emergency — official proclamations being able 
to supply all legislative omissions ; and summary 
arrest and deportation being able to subordinate to 
loyalty al! telegraphic operators, all newspaper editors, 
public orators, private slanderers, and unfriendly 
critics ; so that for the first time we are unanimous in 



13 

the prosecution of a war, though the present is less 
adapted thau any other to promote unanimity. 

Finally, the Constitution of 1787 was an attempt to 
erect a house in which thirteen different families could 
live together in unity. The experiment failed from 
no defect in its organization, but from a defect in 
human nature. We are now trying an amended 
experiment, and as we could not make the different 
families leave unassailed the peculiarities of each other, 
we are trying to destroy all peculiarities, to make the 
families homogeneous. But the remedy to be perma- 
nent must be still more thorough. While the house- 
hold continues of distinctly different families, they will 
find occas:ons of disagreement, and the only perfect 
remedy is to consolidate all families into one. The 
change may be distasteful to many persons, and some 
of us may weep at the dissipation of early political 
dreams; while others, more philosophical, may settle 
down into the poet's contented conclusion : 

'• For forms of government let fools contest, 
That which is best administered is best." 



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